296160 - Preferences is missing an apply button for the testing purpose

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 42339

(SeaMonkey :: Preferences, enhancement)

Description

[Andreas Sigg]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050217
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050217

Often I find myself seeking the desired value for a preferences parameter, like
the font size. Then I have to re-open the desired preference tab each time I
want to try another value. With an already unfolded menubar, the example
consumes four point&click actions to reach the desired font tab.

If instead the preferences tab would have an "apply" button beneath the "ok" and
"cancel" buttons, which applies changes without closing the opened tab, one
could more easily try out different values until the scenario fits the own notions.

Related to this request for a button is the request to keep the opened and
closed preferences submenu tree exactly as it is when closing the preferences
tab. Since opinions on this feature may differ (could be useful sometimes and
disturbing at other times), I look at it as secondary to the implementation of
an "apply" button.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[mozilla3eran]

Duplicate of bug 42339.

This also applies to Firefox and Thunderbird. Should these be filed separately?

Comment 2

[Andreas Sigg]

The implementation from Firefox is different. To stay with the font example,
firefox has an additional preferences window, which is opened with an
"advanced"-button, and it immediately applies all changes to the font size.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 42339 ***